Israel Slaps Travel Ban On Occupied Lands

AL AMARI REFUGEE CAMP, ISRAELI-OCCUPIED WEST BANK — Troops tossed tear gas grenades into shantytown homes and screaming women wrestled with soldiers here Tuesday, a day when at least one Arab was reported killed and Israeli authorities imposed travel restrictions on residents in the occupied areas.

Neither the army nor the civil administration for the territories confirmed the ban on travel for residents traveling between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But an army spokesman told The Tribune, ``We are applying measures to impose the maximum order in the territories.``

A civil administration source said the restrictions would be applied to stop agitators from traveling between the occupied areas.

The Palestine Press Service said four youths died, two in the Gaza Strip and two in the West Bank while 20 were wounded during clashes with troops.

The Israeli army confirmed one death at the village of Deir Jarir, 10 miles northeast of Ramallah, and reported at least 12 wounded. A spokesman said the army was still investigating reports of other deaths.

In another development, the military said two soldiers were convicted and given less than a month in jail for their role in Arab beatings. Their actions had been recorded on tape by an American television crew.

A military judge sentenced Ronnen Sasson to 21 days in jail and Arieh Moalem to 10 days in jail, the army said. They were sentenced Monday following their convictions on charges of brutality and harassment.

Sasson and Moalem, along with two other soldiers and an officer, were taped by a CBS-TV news crew on Feb. 25 as they beat and kicked two bound Palestinian youths in Nablus in the West Bank.

In a surprise dawn raid, soldiers closed down the fruit and vegetable market in Jericho, turning back 70 Arab trucks loaded with tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, lemons, oranges and apples.

Jericho, a major West Bank agricultural center, lives on its daily market. The Palestinian Press Service reported merchants were chased away by soldiers after they set up their stalls in other parts of the town.

It was the second economic measure in 24 hours directed against West Bank residents. On Monday the civil administration advised all municipalities that petrol supplies had been suspended for a week as punishment for the stoning of two road tankers owned by the state-run Padesco Company.

The measures triggered a new wave of rioting on the first day of a two-day general strike decreed by the mysterious Committee for the Uprising.

Stone-throwing youngsters at the Al Amari camp, just 8 miles north of Jerusalem, taunted soldiers on sentry duty at the barricaded entrance for nearly an hour before troops decided to raid the camp.

Firing tear gas, the soldiers trotted up the hilly main street as hundreds of residents evaporated into their ramshackle cinderblock homes in this camp which has a population of 4,600.

A Palestinian flag dangled from an electric wire. Rocks arched over the shacks, thudding between the troops. But the narrow alleys were empty. Windows remained shuttered. There were few signs of life.

A teenage girl dragged a large wooden board across one roof. ``Watch out!`` a platoon commander yelled to his men in the alley below: ``She`ll drop it on you.``

Guns were raised. The girl kept dragging the board to the edge of the roof. The soldiers ducked.

``Can you help me?`` she asked the nearest soldier politely as yet another rock came arching across the houses.

The soldier shouldered his rifle and carefully lowered the board to the ground. ``Thank you,`` the girl said as she climbed off the roof. She took the board, dragged it across the alley and used it to shutter the window of her house.

Suddenly the camp exploded in a crescendo of yells for help. Men, women and children poured from their houses, coughing, spitting, their eyes red, tears on their cheeks.

``The soldiers threw tear gas into our houses. People are choking to death. Help us,`` they yelled as the acrid stench of the gas, billowing from inside the houses, drifted through the narrow alleys.

Two soldiers hauled a thin, scared-looking youth down the main street toward the camp exit. He wriggled and struggled in their grip.

In a flash, dozens of screaming women poured from alleyways, undaunted by tear gas fired in their direction. The women clung to the detained boy, then to the harassed soldiers who first tried to push them away, then to club them off.

In vain.

The boy`s elderly mother wrapped her arms around her son. A soldier tried to wrest her away. She fell, still clinging. He kicked her and she bit him in the leg.

Six soldiers finally wrested their prey free and, firing tear gas at the pursuing women, retreated at a gallop, dragging the boy between them.

He was taken to an army bus outside the camp. The windows of the bus were curtained. Two soldiers guarded it. No one was allowed to approach. Dull rythmic thuds could be heard from inside the bus.

Along the road to Jericho a plume of smoke hung over the village of Deir Jarir. Troops and settlers were fighting a hit-and-run battle with local residents. Half the combatants were women who bombarded settlers and soldiers with stones from their hilltop houses.